The mystery of the tracks in the snow

I was extremely impressed with myself for solving the mystery. So impressed, in fact, that I woke my sleeping husband to tell him. He was slightly less than impressed.

But I'm getting ahead of myself and this story will sound better if I tell it from the beginning, you know the background details.

We have a rather dilapidated fence. It looks rather like a toothless grin with several boards missing. There is a large gate which has been broken since we moved in. We are in a fairly central city location so we try to keep as many vagrants and thieves out (its the rabbits that kill me - seriously - how do I keep them out!). So we have a clever system. A board jammed up against the fence, which is intended to keep the gate from opening. It apparently doesn't work, but perhaps it may slow intruders down?

A couple weekends ago we had fresh snow. The following day I was gazing out my rather dirty kitchen window and saw tracks in the snow. There were lots of rabbit and cat tracks (little lizards!!). But there was one very distinct set of tracks. It came from the back fence, which sat slightly ajar, the board having been dislodged from its duty, right up to the kitchen window and back out the fence again.

I called Wes to see if he had come around the back of the house to grab a tool that may have been sitting by the back kitchen window. It didn't seem likely, since the only thing that is usually in that location is an old barbecue that we haven't got around to discarding yet. But it was worth a try.

Wes had not been in the back yard at all. So we puzzled over it and couldn't figure it out. But it was plain to see we had an intruder.

I tried to dismiss this from my mind but it puzzled me so much. Why would a potential burglar come in the yard and not search around for a point of entry? Like walking up on the deck or going around the side of the house to check basement windows? It was puzzling. Wes had suggested perhaps it was a peeping Tom, but really there isn't much you can see from that spot. You'd have better luck standing across the alley since its sits higher than our fence. So I didn't see the peeping Tom idea either.

But yet there were the tracks...

Several days later, I was laying in bed. Thinking of this and that, unable to sleep. I wasn't thinking about the mystery at all and yet all of a sudden it came to me! I knew who had come into our yard.

I woke Wes up as I turned and exclaimed. "I know who walked in our yard." Wes mumbled something like, "ohyeahh?" I excitedly added, "The ATCO guy." His reader thing must not have been working in the snow so he'd have to come close to read the meter. The meter sits just behind the ancient barbecue that is rusting beneath our kitchen window.

Of course, he just came in looked at the side of the house and left the way he came. Normally their little reader thing works from the alley, but the snow may have interfered. It all made perfect sense to me.

I was extremely proud of my Sherlock Holmes style deductions! All those hours watching mystery shows has finally paid off.

As I said, Wes celebrated  bit less in fact his only reply was a loud snore. Some people don't appreciate the real joys of life.